Homecoming Queen
by moodiful819
Summary: Briefly, ill-conceived notions made their appearance. He could save her. He could pull her out right now and help her, but he quickly tamped them down. He had no place in her life now. AU GenmaxIno.


Well, this has been sitting in my plot journal since I got my Hinder CD during that Sasusaku/ Hinder phase that went around FF. I've always liked this pairing, partially because I don't think I'll ever be able to fully accept the idea of SasuIno and I fall in and out with ShikaIno. Genma, I could pair with just about anyone because of his promiscuity and have it work (can someone tell me how the whole 'Genma sleeps with everyone' thing got started?) and since I'm becoming more partial to IruAnko, GenmaxIno seemed to just fall together. The fact that they are both very secure with themselves and their sexual nature helps a lot as well.

I'm posting this after one brief read-through because I'm just too excited to let this stew in my floppy disk for two months before I read it again to catch my mistakes, so if there are grammatical errors or spelling errors, you now know why.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

* * *

Thick smoke rose to the ceiling. The air reeked of cigarettes and alcohol, but in a place with few windows, he should've expected it. What he didn't expect was that he would find her here.

_It's been five years since I've seen her face  
She's the holy ghost lost without a trace  
And now we're left with the what ifs  
It's been five years since she left for LA  
She's an angel with a dirty face  
And it seems to me  
She's a casualty of all the pressure  
That we put on her  
And now we've lost her for good…_

Yamanaka Ino was always a student he'd remember. Smart, talented, beautiful; she had everything a girl could ever want. She was captain of varsity cheerleading, the lead in every play, prom queen two years in a row, homecoming queen since sophomore year, and she graduated valedictorian. She was a bright student and he remembered the faculty having high hopes for her and he would have been a dirty liar if he didn't say he was one of them, but how could he not? With her smarts and charisma, she could make it. She could take what life had to offer and not only survive, but supersede all their expectations and flourish. Only now did he realize that she could have a chance at failure.

_It's such a shame, shame, shame  
That our homecoming queen  
Was a lot like you and a lot like me  
And she never walked on water  
Guess no one really saw her_

What had he done wrong? He was her homeroom teacher for all four years and her English teacher the last two. He had watched her grades, written her recommendation letters eagerly, made sure she got into the best schools. He talked with her parents regularly and they all encouraged her to do the best to her abilities. She was going to make it. He was so sure that she would, so what happened?

Scanning the bar, he spotted her across the room. Same blonde hair, same bright blue eyes, but they were glassy now. The grace and poise he remembered her having was gone as she stumbled on her stiletto heels and laughed at nothing in particular. The drink in her hand sloshed precariously. Some drops landed on her tight miniskirt, but she didn't seem to notice, too busy laughing it up with the group of males surrounding her. From the bar counter, the tender looked up from his glass and towel to glance at her, click his tongue, and shake his head. From the looks of it, he'd seen her do it too many times to count and was just sad to see it happen.

_She was so adored by everyone  
When it came to looks, she was next to none  
But loved partyin' and havin' too much fun  
Then she hooked up with the wrong someone  
And he promised everything under the sun  
And it seems to me  
She's a casualty of all the pressure  
That he put on her  
And now we've lost her for good…_

She had always been popular. The way she dressed, the way she walked, the way she talked; she naturally attracted people to her. The way she held herself—so calm, so sure of herself and who she was made everyone stop and stare. He himself had been guilty of such things, but at least he was man enough to admit it.

Spinning the glass lazily in his hand, he watched her. The bar lights bounced off her hair, making the blonde strands shimmer like spun silk. Her eyes were closed and she laughed daintily as the guy next to her whispered a joke in her ear and when she opened her eyes again and smiled, he felt his breathing catch for a moment. Of all the women he had ever known, only she had the power to do that to him. It was dangerous. It was unnerving and it was something he craved desperately.

A chuckle. A touch. The guy's hand was slowly sliding up her thigh and he felt his jaw lock and his grip tighten ever so slightly. She was going to get hurt. This was exactly what had happened last time. College was just a few weeks away, then she met Sasuke and her life changed. She stopped studying, stopped coming to class, stopped coming to school entirely because she was cramming every drug imaginable into her body. He couldn't stop her. Her parents couldn't stop her. They were all so afraid that when they picked up the paper and read that another teen was found dead in the gutters that it would be her. It got to the point that her parents couldn't take it anymore and demanded that she chose between her family and her fix. Needless to say, she chose the latter.

_It's such a shame, shame, shame  
That our homecoming queen  
Was a lot like you and a lot like me  
And she never walked on water  
Guess no one really saw her_

A sigh escaped his lips. In his hand, the corners of his glass pinched his skin. He just couldn't understand it. She seemed normal. She seemed fine. She smiled, she laughed, her grades were the best the school had ever seen so what went wrong?

_A shame, shame, shame  
That our homecoming queen  
Had a lot to prove and so many to please  
She's just somebody's daughter  
Just looking for somebody to love her_

He could still remember the last few weeks before her spiraling crash. The images were clear as day and the sounds were as crisp as if they were just made. The class had gone to the beach for a school trip. It was crowded, unbearably hot, and overrated. He had been grouchy due to the heat and she sat through his cynical comments with a smile, but as the day drew on, things had gotten better. By the end of the day, none of them felt like leaving.

When roll-call came, she was nowhere to be seen. Immediately, his brain jumped to the conclusion that something terrible had happened because he was quick to sign people to their deaths before they even stopped breathing.

His heart pounded, his lungs seized. Just where was she, he wondered when he found her on the shoreline staring out at the sea. The wind was blowing gently, causing her white sundress to ripple around her knees and a hand was up to keep her bangs from her eyes, a mysterious far-off look on her face.

"You'll go blind if you keep staring like that." Not the most romantic way to announce your presence, but he was old and seen too much of the world to care about anything as half-assed as romance. She didn't mind and merely smiled at him in a way that made his feet shift awkwardly in the wet sand.

They stood like that for a while. Not talking, not moving; just standing there on the shore as the gulls flew and the waves lapped at their feet. She kept looking at him for reasons he didn't understand because he was too engrossed in inane thoughts like if he should spit out his toothpick and if he should button his shirt. Stupidly, he broke their moment with a reminder that they had to get home and they couldn't do it without her because he was uncomfortable and an idiot. She stepped on without a word, but now he wished that she would've because it was weeks later that he understood that look. She was looking for love and he didn't do anything. That was why she ran to Sasuke.

Looking back at that, he realized how much of an idiot he was. Retrospect usually did that, but he wasn't going to wallow in some form of self-induced misery because there was nothing he could've done. Even if he did tell her that he liked her, the taboo would stop him. If not the taboo, then the fact that he wasn't sure she loved him. Just because she was looking for love didn't mean she loved him. Then again, maybe she did, but he'd never know that because he turned her away. He did it because it was easier, it was safer, and because love was foreign territory and Shiranui Genma was a coward when it counted.

_Well, I never knew you  
Wish I could've saved you  
From losers that drained you  
Before you got strung out  
With so much potential  
How could you let us down…down…_

Had he done anything to cause this? Somewhere inside him, he knew he did. They all did, but denial was a wonderful thing. He knew that they demanded too much of her. The bars were set too high and even if she didn't have to, she had expectations to meet because if she didn't, people would be disappointed and she wouldn't be able to deal with that.

This problem had been coming for a while now. It had been steadily building for years and they couldn't see it; too enraptured by the idea of this wonder girl to remember the fact that she was only human. They couldn't entirely blame Sasuke or the drugs when all they did was make the problem show up. If it wasn't the drugs, it would've been something else. It could've been worse, but still. Why drugs? Why Sasuke? He didn't care about her. That prima donna dumped her after she couldn't give him what he wanted, but maybe she was past the point of caring by then.

He should've done something. He should've seen it. He knew her better than anyone, but he was too busy forcing things on her because she was going to make it. She was going to be somebody—not stuck in some two-bit teaching job wasting away like he was. She had to make it. She had to succeed where he had failed miserably, but look at what happened. Now he was the somebody and she was the one wasting away.

_It's such a shame, shame, shame  
That our homecoming queen  
Was a lot like you and a lot like me  
And she never walked on water  
Guess no one really saw her_

It was like watching a car-wreck in slow motion. Every detail had been stretched into years when the whole thing had occurred in a matter of minutes. Could he have done anything to stop this? He wondered that every night when he went to sleep. He felt guilty and rightly-so in some twisted sense, but what could he do now? She was obviously happy, but maybe she wasn't and he was only looking at face-value because of how easy it was.

_A shame, shame, shame  
That our homecoming queen  
Had a lot to prove and so many to please  
She's just somebody's daughter  
Just looking for somebody to love her…  
She's just somebody's daughter  
Just looking for somebody to love her…  
_

She was dancing now. She was drunk and dancing, grinding and sloppily moving her feet as she clung to her dance partner to keep her up. A laugh escaped him at this point because it was like watching a train-wreck except funny, but it was short-lived because it only hit him then how far she had fallen. The preconceived notions of saving her were gone. She was beyond his reach—had been since that day on the beach—and now she was too far gone to save. The high hopes of college and for great things had faded. Now, he just hoped that she would live to see thirty.

Sighing, he got up from his chair. He hadn't dressed appropriately and he was paying for it in the way he was baking inside the building. The drunken display had gotten too painful to watch and the combined scents of sweat, smoke, and cheap alcohol had become unbearable.

Dropping a few bills to cover his drink and tip, he made his way towards the exit. His steps were slow, his toothpick swung from corner to corner. Opening the door, he stopped in the doorway to glance back at her. A slow song had come on and she was cradled in the arms of her new boy toy, face flushed with her head resting on his shoulder as she tried to calm the spinning room. Briefly, ill-conceived notions made their appearance. He could save her. He could pull her out right now and help her, but he quickly tamped them down. He had no place in her life anymore and stepping out into the night air, walked into the glowing lights of downtown LA, the door closing on her discontented sigh.

_It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame  
It's such a shame, shame, shame…_


End file.
